Putin Critic Navalny Arrested After Leafleting for Protest

[SidDithers]

http://www.newsweek.com/putin-critic-navalny-arrested-after-leafleting-protest-307077

Kremlin-critic Alexei Navalny was once again detained by police in Moscow alongside fellow opposition campaigner Nikolay Lyashkin, yesterday afternoon. The two men had been handing out leaflets on the Moscow underground promoting their upcoming anti-government protest, planned for 1st March.

Navalny, who was convicted of embezzlement in December alongside his brother, in a trial the EU has since condemned as “politically motivated”, was detained by 15 police officers yesterday and released in the early hours of this morning.

According to his press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, the police gave no clear explanation for Navalny’s detention, and they refused to tell her when he would be released. His campaigning has often been disrupted by similar interceptions, with the police continually declining to explain the reasons for detaining him.

Last month, he was arrested outside the offices of Echo of Moscow radio station after criticising president Vladimir Putin while on air, and he was also detained in December, after he took to the streets of Moscow on the same night he was found guilty of embezzlement. Both times Navalny was released within hours.

Sid

[Tarheel_Dem]

1. Well, of course he was. How can anyone be indicted for "embezzlement" in a country where the top...

guy is reportedly worth anywhere between $40 & $200 bn dollars? The whole thing is laughable.

[pampango]

2. Pro-Kremlin March coming this weekend. No trouble with permits. Opposition protest

next weekend- no such luck so far.

The Anti-Maidan leadership said Monday that the organization is prepared to pay fines if more than the permitted 10,000 people show up to a march in Moscow on Saturday, the Vzglyad newspaper reported. "We applied for 10,000 people, but today we know that more than 100 organizations will join the Anti-Maidan movement," Dmitry Sablin, a senator in the Federation Council's defense committee, reportedly told a news conference hosted by state news agency TASS.

The Anti-Maidan organization was formed in mid-January with the stated aim of preventing a Maidan-style popular uprising in Russia. Other prominent members include the head of the Night Wolves biker gang, Alexander Zaldostanov, aka The Surgeon, who was recently sanctioned by the United States, and female mixed martial arts fighting champion Yulia Berezikova.

A week later — on Sunday, March 1 — opposition leader Alexei Navalny plans to hold a march of 10 times as many people down Tverskaya Ulitsa, Moscow's main street. Navalny and an associate, Nikolai Lyaskin, were detained by police on Sunday as they handed out fliers for the march at a Moscow metro station.

Lyaskin said Monday on Twitter that a formal application to conduct the march, titled "Spring," had been submitted to City Hall. It is against the law to hold public rallies in Moscow without prior consent by the city authorities.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/pro-kremlin-rally-organizers-expect-over-10-000-people-at-downtown-march/516018.html